Comment by barbazoo 3 days ago
> From Israel's perspective, this supply chain attack was undoubtedly a clever move
From The Guardian [1]:
> Eight killed and 2,750 wounded
Was that a clever move if you're killing "only" 8 potential adversaries?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/17/middle-ea...
> And, there will be a "long tail" of damage to Hezbollah's usual communications practices & trust in devices/suppliers.
It appears pager use was a solid choice. Even on full supply chain compromise the amount of explosives fitted couldn't kill even 1% of targets. A cellphone would be packed with much larger payloads able to kill much more people. Their failure was the lack of proper inspection before distribution.
I think the purpose is to terrorize your opponents. Sometimes getting seriously wounded is even worse than getting killed, from the perspective of Hez. Now they need to handle thousands of wounded members, which is much more expensive than dead ones.
Who said the injured are all Hezbollah members? From the above Guardian coverage:
"Among those killed is an eight-year-old girl from Bekka Valley, Abiad said, according to Al Jazeera."
This CCTV footage shows one of the devices exploding in a busy supermarket:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-m...
Terrorizing your opponents is one thing, but indiscriminately detonating bombs in public spaces is just plain terrorism.
The busy supermarket saw people standing directly beside the target perplexed and completely unharmed. This was extremely localized.
If the child story is true (which is always in question), presumably they were tragically playing with the pager or the like at precisely that time.
However the footage of the attack is overwhelmingly fighting-age males exclusively. As far as military operations go, that is remarkably targeted.
if someone next to you in a supermarket was wounded from an explosive like the video shows, do you think perplexed and completely unharmed would be a good description for your experience? Maybe we saw different videos, but it's pretty hard to make such a generalized statement from a few seconds of video.
> The busy supermarket saw people standing directly beside the target perplexed and completely unharmed. This was extremely localized.
I saw that video too and I'm happy the bystanders in that case were unharmed but that was 1/2000 (or 5,000?) explosions. I wouldn't necessarily extrapolate the supermarket video to the other several thousand explosions.
indiscriminately? They were all used by Hezbollah operatives by definition. It is the most targeted operation if there ever was one.
Indiscriminate in the sense that bombs have an area of effect beyond the person carrying them, so they couldn't possibly account for collateral damage when firing them all at once, and a conscious decision was made that any unlucky civilians are fair game. Indiscriminate in the same sense as dropping a bunker buster on a residential block because you believe there's a handful of terrorists inside, or nuking two cities to "encourage" a military surrender.
If you believe this tactic was just, then I trust that if Mossad obliterated your child in the process of assassinating an enemy of Israel who happened to be nearby then you would be able to forgive and forget, since it was for the greater good and they tried their best. Even if they were targeting the wrong person, as it sometimes goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
Incidentally when they later killed the actual target of that operation they did so by detonating a 100kg car bomb on a public road, also killing 4 civilians and injuring 16 others.
operatives
A lot of people seem to think Hezbollah is purely military in nature because of the 'terrorism' label. The organization was founded to respond to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and while it is a militant organization it also has seats in the Lebanese parliament, engages in a lot of non-military activities, and does not have simple politics - for example, it has condemned Al Qaeda and ISIS for terroristic attacks.
Labels such as 'terrorists' are as often designed to confuse as to inform. Reductionist categorization makes people easy to manipulate.
Sadly, not happening.
A lot of Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese are irreligious. Yet, a lot of Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese know people who have been affected by the conflict first hand (either refugees, civilian casualties, or combatant casualties), which makes it difficult to negotiate.
The 1990s-2000s was the last period where some sort of negotiation could succeed, because there was still a large 1st and 1.5 gen Mizrahi and Sephardic community that had some residual feeling for Muslim states, and vice versa. That's how Israel and Morocco, Azerbaijan, and Turkey pre-2012 were able to get their relationship back on track.
At this point, the peace process is dead. Even the secular opposition to Likud and the Kahanists in Israel supports a harsh military response, casualties be damned. Similar story in West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon.
Any sort of peace process will have to be backed by internal repression for a generation by all participants.
Also, being a martyr on a poster with everyone celebrating you can be an attractive recruitment tool to young men. But seeing the broken beggar without eyes that people pity isn't going to be quite the same enticement to recruit for your terrorism org.
I actually think that an unintended consequence is that Mossad has permanently flagged the vast majority of Hizbullah's followers, an entire generation, on Lebanese soil.
The wound patterns will emerge for the vast majority of victims: arms, hands, eyes and hips ? Time will tell.
The Lebanese army, and the IDF, now suddenly can tell between civilian vs combatant.
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like you are implying membership of Hezbollah is deep dark shameful secret in Lebanon. The designation of Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization" is great for outside political propaganda, but the actual reality is they are a major and open faction in political life in Lebanon as both paramilitary group and political party - as is my understanding. Basically Sinn Fein/IRA.
Lebanon is very generous. They have their zones, mostly in the South, Bekaa, and a specific part of Beyrouth. It is also true they have a political wing. But they also have covert enforcers outside those zones and that is what everyone else is most fearful of. They have been involved in sectarian killings tit-for-tats, for many years. Most famously, the murder of PM rafik hariri.
So, otside of those Hizbullah zones, its actually not common to see the Hizbullah yellow flags openly displayed. Or a car bumper sticker. It is for good reason. There was a civil war before, and memories run deep.
If I was wounded (or even witnessed this in real life), I would go from civilian to combatant instantly. Israel just attacked a bunch of civilian population centers. This will be seen as a huge strategic mistake, both in terms of new combatants created on the ground and continued loss of good will for Israel abroad.
The only reason IL can do it, is because the general population in Lebanon hates hezbollah, it is basically a proxy control power from IRAN.
Look at this to understand how big part of Lebanon sees Hezbollah https://www.instagram.com/brigitte_gabriel/reel/CyT_RanK1gi/
I think you are missing context. 10 years of civil war and many more decades of animositiy and of strife, are not reversed overnight , even due to an event like this. For example, Israël has lobbed missiles before, and that had its collateral damage, but also didnt change a thing or win new allies to Hizbullah.
Even some druze (historically neutral sectl were kidnapped and killed in the Oct 7th events.
Now, for the 1st time in 100 years, every single rival of hizbullah is able to instantly recognize enemies, in the open.
Obe thing im certain of, Israel has managed to reset the board in its conflict with Hezbollah.
I think the simplest explanation here is that pagers are small and light and don't have that much free space inside them, and it's hard to fit enough explosive into them to reliably kill people. The figures I saw was only a few grams of explosive could be fit in them. If you look at the photos and videos that have been coming out today you'll see what the injuries look like; they're not as catastrophic as getting shot with a bullet, or anything close to a real explosive with orders of magnitude more explosive in it like an artillery shell, rocket, aerial bomb, etc.
I would guess Israel would have preferred more lethal pagers, but the required amount of explosive simply didn't fit. So the resulting deaths are from the people who got really unlucky, whereas getting wounded was the modal result.
you're looking at the wrong videos. I saw videos with people's hands blown off, massive holes in their bodies, etc. reportedly something like 15-20gr of Pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Massive wounds.
there's also going to be a bunch of plastic shrapnel either way. reports were saying that people's eyes were being hit, I think most likely by plastic shrapnel.
The death toll isn't the goal. They're after the 2nd order effects, now there are ~3,000 operatives that are marked by a scar that is relatively distinctive. They also have substantially disrupted their communication protocols and caused psychological damage.
Hezbollah members in Lebanon are not necessarily perceived as bad people - why would the scar be a problem ? Hezbollah claims it’s a resistance movement to Israel, they’re now wearing a scar caused by Israel in a mass coordinated attack, which will further legitimize Hezbollah.
I agree with the disruption of communication protocols and psychological damage though.
I don't get it. Why does Lebanon need to resist Israel? When in recent history has Israel attacked Lebanon or threatened it in any way, except in retaliation or defense against Hezbollah acts?
I actually read quite a bit. Point me towards something specific if you will.
Is it all of Lebanon though? I think Christian and Druze Lebanese don’t like the Hezbollah much anyway. Sure the Shiite south does but no one else.
I doubt those 2,750 all have minor injuries. That's 2,750 targets, a lot of whom probably now now have missing fingers/hands, a chunk missing from their leg, face injuries.... Aka major injuries from having a small explosion on their belt or int their pocket. It's going to be 2,750 probably major injuries that will take a long time to recover from.
And then they will be 10x more dedicated to revenge. Where they may have sworn to destory Israel before, they weren't yet personally injured. It'a the same cycle of violence.
If you lost half your gut or a kidney or had your stomach punctured you may be alive, but you’re definitely not battle ready. And you may never be again. A device that explodes in such close proximity to a body is more than certain that it will damage some internal organ. All these thousands of Hezbollah militia are forever incapacitated. You didn't kill them, but they can't hurt you in the future if let's say you decide to mount a full scale invasion on Lebanon.
2k/300M people died on 9/11 and our world has forever changed. 1% is waaaay bigger than that number. Terror spreads.
Wounded soldiers are often a bigger burden than killed ones. You neee to retrieve them, take care of them, and they may never be fight capable again. They are also a breathing reminder of the costs of war, and at the same time less likely to make others vow revenge.
Killing is one thing, but wounded soldiers/operatives are a much larger drain on resources than killing.
The wounded people need care, medicine, rehab, therapy, and feeding during their recovery.
This occupies significant resources of your enemy.
I’m not commenting on this specific attack, but talking in general.
It's not clear whether you're asserting Israel does or doesn't care whether it kills civilians, though I think you're saying it doesn't in general try to accomplish this.
Israel's history is decidedly chequered in this regard, and there have been killings, including quite recently of demonstrators / protestors, and within recent years of journalists, by Israeli forces.
But there are also practices such as "roof knocking" in which an initial nonlethal warning is exploded above a building several minutes prior to a much more destructive strike:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking>
Video of a roof-knock strike: <https://xcancel.com/AJEnglish/status/1710690655091990644#m>
The explosion seen doesn't significantly damage the building, that occurs in a later strike, shown as the first set of explosions here:
<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ZFTK9V_mEjI>
(That clip follows with the initial roof-knock.)
And to be clear, much of Israel's subsequent air and artillery assault on the Gaza strip has been far less surgical, with vast numbers of structures destroyed.
By contrast, both Hamas and Hezbollah make extensive use of highly inaccurate missiles (totally unguided in the case of Hamas, guided though low-ish precision generally for Hezbollah) which are effectively aerial mines, striking randomly largely within civilian areas. This reflects both tactics and available means, so again the picture is complex. As I've written in an earlier comment on this thread, most hats are at best grey in these conflicts, rather than clearly white.
If their comms are severely disrupted, yes. Even if it wasn't militarily effective, it's still quite a clever attack.
If this were coordinated with a ground attack on Hezbollah, it would be a great way to disrupt any defense right before it needs to offer resistance.
I'm surprised they used it out of such a concept. It is almost heartening, because it suggests no such attack is currently anticipated by Israel.
How do we know this didn't do this but in reverse, being used to disrupt an attack Hezbollah had planned? Edit: People seem to be ignoring the large amount of Syrian operatives this hit as well.
exactly. The most charitable way to look at this is Israel targeted a handful fewer bystanders than a terrorist attack. I can't imagine anyone thinking longer-term strategy thought thought this was a good idea.
Really isn't though. We don't know if there was an imminent action that Israel prevented by doing this? Did Israel do this instead of blowing up apartment blocks to target individuals, in which case this might be a much more limited collateral damage action than other methods might have caused. Without knowing Israel's motives one can't make any sort of judgement not sure why you are leaping to conclusions minus any actual information.
Idk who exactly was hit but losing a hand will definitely hurt ones ability to fight.
It's the psychology. Every sat phone and laptop is being opened up right now...
I'm guessing it was to stop some tentative action on Hezbollahs and the huge number of Syrians that this attack got as wells parts that was about to occur.
> 2,750 wounded
Absolutely insane. Imagine this many Israeli had been wounder by Hammas attack.
Disgusting move from Israel to keep civilian causalities minimum! This is no excuse for 'collateral damage'
Nearly every single one injured was a Hezbollah militant. Regarding militant:civilian rates, this has one of the lowest civilian impacts of any option.
Most modern wars see MORE than 1 civilian death per militant death. This pager bomb was nearly entirely militants.
Israeli war in Gaza is the bloodiest happening right now.
These bombs went off right in front of civilian population with no regards to children or women.
Close to 3000 wounded. Wounded include children losing limbs.
> Wounded include children losing limbs.
That seems like an awful lot of explosive power for something that needs to be secretly added to a functional pocket pager without affecting external dimensions or adding perceptible weight.
Cautious skepticism is warranted, given how profitable some parties would find it to make such claims regardless of whether they are true or not.
It looks like a trigger that can only be pulled once.
Thus, choice of the optimal time could be influenced by a lot of things:
- knowledge of other Hezbollah imminent action making comms disruption right now of great importance
- recognition that the vulnerability had been discovered and was about to be remediated
- via other "eyes on" prime targets, knowledge that just one or two top leaders were briefly in especially-vulnerable positions (like sleeping alongside their pagers)
- etc
And, there will be a "long tail" of damage to Hezbollah's usual communications practices & trust in devices/suppliers. Some marginal recruits may even be deterred from joining a battle against an opponent which can carry out this sort of attack – though of course, others may be emboldened.